


Malin's Tale

by Moon_Rose (Moonrose91)



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Dwarves don't just pop right out of the ground, F/M, Gen, I will not be held responsible for it, Or A Minor Bird, Original Characters are mostly because...I have no names, Sad Story, They had to actually exist, This is all your fault, This really will make no sense if you haven't read my Mute Bilbo stuff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-04
Updated: 2013-05-11
Packaged: 2017-11-28 06:06:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/671141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonrose91/pseuds/Moon_Rose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A tale, no matter how short, must have a beginning and an ending. And every tale, no matter how winding, has other tales it touches along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Blessing of Mahal

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Silent Voice in the Dark](https://archiveofourown.org/works/658008) by [Moon_Rose (Moonrose91)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonrose91/pseuds/Moon_Rose). 



When Rakel, mother of Balin and Dwalin, sons of Fundin, her first husband, went to the healers after experiencing _days_ of slight nausea that had her slightly worried, she had not expected the news that was delivered to her.  
  
Pregnancy, rare enough in Dwarf women, became even more dangerous, and rarer, as they grew older and, a few years past 200, she was reaching the end of her own life. She smiled a bit at the idea of with her life’s end a new would begin, before she frowned.  
  
Vrai, her husband and father to the child now growing within, was not Fundin and it was likely she would have a great many problems with this birth, as she had had problems with Dwalin’s.  
  
And children got _bigger_ with each birth, which was why Dwalin was harder to get out than Balin.  
  
She frowned more and continued to thread the fine gold wire into the tapestry she was making for some Man, the last touches before it was finished. This pregnancy, she knew, would be long and difficult.  
  
It would be hard on her, hard on Vrai…  
  
“Mother?” Balin called and she looked up from her work.  
  
Hard on her sons.  
  
“Yes, Balin?” she inquired, and he stepped fully into the room of cloth and fine threads.  
  
He was her eldest born, a master of words and the sword, along with some fine skill in the forge, though he rarely used it, focused as he was on the ‘gentle’ arts, though none said so to his face, nor anywhere a son of Fundin could hear them.  
  
For, while Balin could easily mind his own honor, any who said a cold word about Balin often met with Dwalin’s fist to their jaw, if he was off duty.  
  
If he was on duty, the met with his boot their back.  
  
Yes, Dwalin was definitely Fundin’s son.  
  
Balin, however, was hers.  
  
“Mother, I would wish to speak with you, if you have the time,” Balin explained, and she looked down at her work before she carefully spread the tapestry out on the table so there would be no wrinkles and left the thread and needle next to it.  
  
“I always have time for you, my son,” she answered and stood, pressing hands to her back before she rubbed her neck as she rolled it, eyes closing at the light popping sound that accompanied it all.  
  
She wouldn’t be able to do this for much longer, which meant there would be less money coming in.  
  
She frowned again, feeling her forehead crinkle.  
  
A hand touched her arm and she opened her eyes to look over at Balin, before she gave him another smile. “My apologies, Balin, my mind went wandering without me,” she stated and he shook his head.  
  
“Think nothing of it, Mother. May we talk outside of your work room?” he asked.  
  
“Of course,” she answered and he held his arm out of her, which she accepted as they stepped out.  
  
She is almost surprised to find Dwalin, arms crossed, waiting for them, leaning against the wall.  
  
Almost, but not quite.  
  
His beard and hair, as dark as hers had once been before it had gone gray, is unbraided and free. She lets out a soft huff and she reaches up, gently tugging on one of his earrings in his left ear, where he has two, leaving the right unadorned.  
  
He frowns a bit, knowing the action is less for the earrings and more for the choice of them.  
  
“Dwalin, I thought you had first shift?” she questioned lightly, even as she gave Balin’s hair, a greying cinnamon that was all Fundin’s, a small tug.  
  
Balin smiled a bit, knowing the silent scolding for what it was.  
  
“I traded with one of the lads,” Dwalin answered, stepping up to her left side, as he had always done, as Balin led her to the dining room.  
  
They nearly shoved her into sitting down, though they did not actually shove, as they began telling her about their day, about the forges, and about Thorin when she asked Dwalin, directly, about his friend, and King.  
  
She knew her sons looked at Thorin with far too much…feeling, as it were.  
  
If he were to ask the impossible, her sons would try to grant it.  
  
She fears, deep in her heart, she will lose her sons as she lost their father.  
  
She does not think her heart could take that loss as well.  
  
“Mother, are you feeling well?” Balin asked as he set a cup of tea down in front of her.  
  
She raised an eyebrow a bit at that and began to tap her fingers lightly against the ceramic work. “Quite, actually. If you can get Dwalin to sit down and stop pacing and itching for his whet stone so he can sharpen his weapons, I shall share with you some news,” Rakel answered and Dwalin immediately sat.  
  
“Now, what has brought this on?” she asked, instead of answering and Dwalin grumbles lowly, even as Balin sends him a sharp look.  
  
Dwalin will temper with time, she knows this. He’s already a great warrior.  
  
He just needs to learn how to be a great _Dwarf_ now.  
  
Balin has long since learned how to balance both, his patience a virtue that he inherited from his mother, though the humility is all his own.  
  
“I saw you, coming out of the Healers, looking pale,” Dwalin admitted.  
  
And that was what he meant by trading with one of the lads.  
  
Balin has joined Dwalin in sitting across from her, eyes worried and she lets out a low hum, before she sips her tea, then sets it down. “I am with child,” she explained.  
  
Rakel lets out a soft laugh of amusement as Dwalin falls backwards off the bench in a dead faint.

*~*~*~*

 

“Why was your son glaring at me today?” Vrai asks when he comes home and she looks up from where she is doing needlepoint, more work that has been requested and she does, because she has not been in a forge since she broke her arm some years ago and was never able to use a hammer the same way again.  
  
Much to her dismay, it still does pain her, and she looks back down at her needlepoint. “Balin never glares, but if it was Dwalin, quite possibly because I am with child,” she answered.  
  
And she let out a soft laugh when she heard the _thump_ that came with Vrai’s collapse.


	2. Dizzy Spells

Rakel was three months into her pregnancy when the first dizzy spell hits her. She has to lie down, on the floor of her work room, and Balin is the one who finds here there, naturally. Scholar and scribe, he can find free time while the others, trapped to the rigors of their schedules, cannot. “I’m fine,” she protested softly, but Balin is worried.  
  
It is in his eyes.  
  
She smiled a bit as she tried to sit up, only to have another wave of dizziness that strikes her down. “I will be right back Mother. Please do not move too much,” he stated and carefully lay her back down.  
  
Rakel let out sigh and mentally tried to figure out what work she would do next. Maybe braided leather bookmarks, something that Balin could sell in the marketplace.  
  
And get cheated. “Aunt Rakel, not even Dis is as stubborn as you,” Gloin greeted and she glanced to her door to find that Balin had brought not only Gloin, but Thorin as well.  
  
“Thorin, I thought you would not return for another moon,” she greeted and glared at Gloin before she pointed at him.  
  
“And I am not stubborn. I was just struck down by a sudden wave of dizziness,” she corrected, even as Gloin laughed before he stepped up to her shoulders and slipped his arms under her them, supporting her.  
  
She closed her eyes a bit, even as she felt Thorin’s arms wrap around her waist and Balin take her legs, carefully wrapping her skirts (nothing like those of Erebor, when she had been a warrior’s wife and an advisor’s mother) around her legs.  
  
They lifted her into the air and she let out a slew of curses in their tongue that made Gloin chuckle. “There’s the mouth my mother hated me to be around,” Gloin teased.  
  
“I always wondered where Dwalin had picked up his most creative curses,” Thorin stated and she, uncaring that he was a king, swatted him.  
  
She did not meet armor, but cloth, and she felt soot stain her fingers.  
  
She wondered when he had come in and if Balin had come across him unexpectedly.  
  
She hoped that he had not been driven out of a Man’s town and she let out a low whine as she felt the dizziness catch hold of her once more. “Easy Mother,” Balin soothed and she opened her eyes to glare at him.  
  
“Balin, if you say ‘easy mother’ one more time to me today, I shall take one of my throwing knives and aim for your head!” she warned, but Balin merely smiled gently at her.  
  
“Is she always this way while pregnant?” Thorin questioned.  
  
“According to Father, yes,” Gloin answered.  
  
Rakel huffed a bit and sniffed as she was carefully lowered into bed, Balin dragging the covers over her, modestly. “I get…tetchy during pregnancies, yes. I had Fundin suitably quailed quite nicely while I was pregnant with Balin, so he left his poor brother to deal with me while I was pregnant with Dwalin,” she answered.  
  
Thorin smiled a bit at that, surprising her and he stood up normally. “Thank you, Thorin,” Balin stated, along with Gloin, though Thorin just shook his head.  
  
“Dis wished for me to check on the ‘only other pregnant Dwaf lady in the entire Mountain’ and I obliged. She is even worse than Lady Rakel,” Thorin answered and gave a polite incline of his head before he made his departure.  
  
Rakel huffed and then pointed at her door. “Gloin, _out_! Balin, if you are going to hover, bring me my basket of bed work. I refuse to be unproductive,” she ordered and Gloin laughed before he left, Balin smiling and, carefully smacking his head against hers.  
  
“I am not made of glass, Balin, for all that it seems that way,” she retorted gently and Balin stood up normally with a small frown.  
  
“I worry about you, Mother. I have not heard of any Dwarf before becoming pregnant at your age, and, from what I have learned from the others, you were not nearly this fragile while you had Dwalin, only having dizzy spells towards the end,” Balin responded and she huffed lowly at Balin’s words.  
  
While true, she did not like facing such truth.  
  
It reminded her of all that had been lost and the fact that, if all was right in her world, this would be Fundin’s child and she finds it uncharitable to think such when she is happy with Vrai, though she will admit, if asked, that she does not love him.  
  
However, she is kept from her thoughts when Balin returns with the basket she spoke of, the one he fetches when she is tired and aching, though she would never admit it unless Mahal himself asked her, or whenever she keeps to bed because she is just _tired_.  
  
She has a feeling her time is ending and that this babe that grows within her will take the last of her strength.  
  
Rakel has always been comforted by the idea that she would not die in vain, though as time wore on it became obvious she would die of old age.  
  
She would have to thank both Mahal and Buzninh for such a double-blessing, but later.  
  
As she pulls out her embroidery, she smiles up at Balin. “Best fetch the healers, Balin.”  
  
The word ‘healers’ has barely finished coming out of her mouth before he is running.  
  
And she begins to hum an old lullaby that she had once hummed to both her sons, asking for Mahal and his wife, Buzninh, for the blessing of a girl-child. The song goes on to say that, if the mother is not ready for such a blessing, than let the child be strong and hale.  
  
She is put on bedrest the minute the Healers leave, Balin giving them the required coin for the visit, though she knows without having to look that it is a discount.  
  
Children are rare, no more than one or two being born to one. And considering the rarity of females...  
  
“Mother?” Balin called and she let out a low hum.  
  
“I must get back to my stall...I left a young Dwarf, Dori is the name, with his baby brother, watching over it,” Balin stated and she looked up at Balin, a small frown on her face.  
  
“Baby brother?” she inquired softly.  
  
Balin hesitated, and nodded. “His mother...was as you are. She did not survive the birth and nearly took Ori with her,” Balin answered, not able to look at her.  
  
She smiled in understanding, set her work to the side, and raised her arms.  
  
Balin had not hugged her for a long time, though not as long as Dwalin, and he immediately hugged her. She tightened her grip on him and ran a comforting hand through his free hair, giving him a gentle smack on the back of his head before they parted.  
  
“I seem to have raised a pair of rapscallions who refuse to braid their hair like proper Dwarves! Now, off with you!” she ordered and Balin smiled and left.  
  
“And tell Dwalin not to ‘switch’ with anymore lads when you see him,” Rakel shouted before the front door closed and she settled back against her pillows, closing her eyes briefly.  
  
Once she had her bearings, she opened her eyes and continued to embroider, humming the same old lullaby.  
  
Later, when the sun has left the sky, Dwalin brings her supper in bed, a small one and one he definitely did not cook.  
  
Dwalin, for all of his skills, cannot cook anything except on a spit or in a stew, and this is neither.  
  
“Will you tell me about your day, my warrior son?” she inquired.  
  
She is a bit surprised when he obliges, filling the silence.  
  
He, unlike his brother, does not hover, nor does he speak of how _tired_ she must look, if how she _feels_ is anything to go off of.  
  
It is late when Vrai comes home and, for once, Dwalin does not glower at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter makes me nervous.
> 
> All these chapters make me nervous.
> 
> Also...Buzninh means 'the garden lady' in Neo-Khuzdul. (I think I spelled that right.)
> 
> So, Buzninh is another name for Yavanna.
> 
> Thus...Elves and Men call her Yavanna, Dwarves/Dwarrows call her Buzninh, and Hobbits call her the Green Lady. I feel accomplished for giving names for two cultures for Yavanna.
> 
> (It makes sense in my head.)


	3. Mother to Youngest Son

Dwalin frowned as he watched his mother make her way around the kitchen, even as he polished the new axe that Balin had made him. “Dwalin, if you keep frowning like that, you’re going to end up with a face like one of the Men’s droop-faced hounds,” she teased, gently tapping his forehead with her finger.  
  
“Mother,” he growled.  
  
“Dwalin,” she retorted and she paused in her walking around to grab the table, hand pressing against the bump.  
  
He did not hesitate to set his ax on the table, ignoring her hiss of “weapons _off_ the table,” and standing up, before he stepped forward, wrapping one arm around her waist. “Don’t you dare start treating me like one of Frita’s glass baubles!” she growled.  
  
“Never. But pregnant mothers need more rest than ones who spend all day in the forge,” Dwalin answered with his own brand of gentleness and she let out a long suffering sigh.  
  
“Just don’t become Balin,” she stated, even as he helped her sit down on one of the, few, backed chairs that she owned.  
  
“I won’t,” he promised, before he headed to her bedroom to collect the quilt and carefully pulling it over her lap. She huffed at the fussing, though she didn’t shove him away.  
  
She pat his cheek a bit as he moved back to his axe and continued polishing it. “You got that, _today_ , Mithril-born,” she murmured softly in Khuzdul.  
  
Dwalin looked up at that old nickname.  
  
She only called him that when she was trying to soothe him.  
  
“Yes. Don’t know when Balin had time to make it,” Dwalin answered and she smiled.  
  
The peaceful moment was shattered when Vrai stepped into the kitchen and Dwalin scowled at him, eyes quickly taking in the cuts on his face and Mother laughed softly.  
  
“Vrai, welcome home. Dwalin, stop scowling,” she stated and shifted, as if to lever herself out of her chair.  
  
Vrai finished walking into the room and shook his head. “You don’t need to move. What can I get you?” he asked and Mother grumbled a bit before she requested tea.  
  
Vrai smiled at her, in a manner that made Dwalin want to grab his stepfather and throw him across the room, much like he had some of the others who tried to back his mother into a marriage.  
  
“Dwalin,” Mother stated in her warning tone.  
  
Dwalin focused intensely on his newest axe, wishing it needed sharpening desperately.

*~*~*~*

  
Dwalin frowned slightly as he watched Vrai help his mother to bed later that evening. There were soft threats from her, about knives and hamstrings, but Dwalin knew they were idle.  
  
In the light of the hearth, Dwalin found himself staring into the flames and thinking about the gentle nickname his mother used so rarely.  
  
It would be a soft murmur in his ear as she held him close, like in times they were in exile or when she held him after a nightmare.  
  
One time stood out in Dwalin’s memory.  
  
Of the time Men had searched their caravan, denting wares, confiscating their most expensive things for sale, Balin clinging to her skirts, something Dwalin had never seen Balin do before.  
  
They had had no choice, back then.  
  
No way to hide the fact that their mother was their mother, so they just hid the fact she had a beard.  
  
Dwalin remembered how uncomfortable his mother had been, how their Father clasped an arm tight around her, protective and fierce, until the Men left them alone and Father promised to get all the dents out of each item harmed.  
  
Back then, Dwalin had had a hard time imagining his mother standing on her own and then she suddenly _was_ standing on her own, and with a great deal of strength he had never seen in her before.  
  
But that was before the Blue Mountains, and then she took them with her to the Blue Mountains, her strength never wavering.  
  
Mother was somehow standing on her own, fierce and with steel in her spine, but still soft and gentle, the Lady brought low by a dragon he had never seen, driven from a place he had never known.  
  
And then the suitors came.   
  
The suitors came, and Dwalin hated them all.  
  
Balin only hated some.  
  
Dwalin chased as many as he could away and those he couldn’t, Balin did.  
  
The few that weren’t scared away by Balin, were turned down by Mother.  
  
Till Vrai.  
  
Vrai who got her to say _yes_.  
  
Dwalin still didn’t know how he did it, especially since he knew Mother had only loved Father. And the fact she was pregnant…  
  
 _“You, my Mithril-born, were a surprise. For a Dwarf woman can’t get pregnant unless she feels completely secure, and safe…and loved. We are a strong as the mountain, so the babes can be as well, but we use that strength to bring the babes here. I had you on the road, I had you with dragon-fire at our heels not yet cooled and Orcs howling in the distance. And that was how I knew that your Father had my heart, fully and completely. Because he must have done all three, while I was so scared, so that I could have you.”_  
  
“Dwalin?” Vrai called and Dwalin looked over.  
  
“She wants to talk to you,” Vrai stated and Dwalin nodded before he stood and headed into the room.  
  
She was doing embroidery.  
  
Dwalin wasn’t surprised.


	4. A New Addition (Childbirth, Death, and Guardianship Issues)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The childbirth position I use is squatting on blocks.
> 
> She is supported by two people, though that is not tradition, due to her weakened state and the reason they don't settle her on the bed, and on her back, is because that will put unnecessary strain on her back and make already traditionally difficult births even more so.

Rakel knew she didn't look well.

She didn't feel well either.

She was exhausted constantly and there had been a few close calls, a few too many moments where labor seemed about ready to  _start_ much too soon. Shortly after taking the healer, and midwife's, words to heart about bed rest, she found herself sleeping more as the pregnancy dragged on.

Now, her hands shook to the point where she couldn't even do the simplest embroidery and her eyesight began to slowly, yet surely, fail on her until all she could see were shapes, shadows, and the brightest of colors.

When she was halfway through the pregnancy, Rakel knew she would never see her child grow up. She would probably never even see the child, nor name the future darling, nor anything else.

This child was taking the last of her strength as old age rushed her, as it did all Dwarves at the end of their lives, though normally it took a decade, not near a year.

“Amad,” Balin started, but she just shushed Balin gently, reaching up to touch his cheek.

He immediately grabbed her wrist and guided her hand there.

Oh, her eldest son was always so quick in his thoughts and she had her thumb rub circles against his cheekbone, easily avoiding his beard. “Just promise me to take care of everyone once I’m gone, my golden heart,” she murmured softly and she felt the tears against her palm as Balin nodded in agreement.

“Oh, my dear one, I’ll get to see Fundin again. Don’t be so sad. Mahal’s Halls will be a welcome respite after all of this, _especially_ as I am bringing a new life into this world, even if it is not Erebor, but the Blue Mountains have been good to us,” she murmured softly and let out a long sigh when she heard the door slam open.

Balin carefully settled her hand back over her bump, where she could feel gentle flutters under her hands while someone ran to her bedroom.

“Dwalin, slow down!” she barked out as her younger son stormed into the room, panting like a horse that had been ridden too hard.

“It…it is the Lady Dís!” Dwalin exclaimed.

“What’s wrong? What’s happened to our Lady?” Rakel demanded as she struggled to sit up, despite Balin’s reassurances to lay back and keep calm.

“Nothing! Lady Dís has just given birth to a boy! She has named him Kíli!” Dwalin exclaimed and Rakel fell back when her muscles gave out.

However, she couldn’t help but splutter out, “But…there were no bells!”

“The lad came out easy for her! A blessing, as Fíli near killed her. The lad is excited as anything about his new baby brother and when her husband returns home, he will probably be just as joyful! But Dís’s labor was over and done with within a few hours,” Dwalin exclaimed and Rakel smiled at that, relief in her bones.

“That’s good. Very good,” Rakel murmured as she slipped back into sleep, the excitement of a new prince and the surprise of such an easy birth getting to her.

She was glad, truly, that Mahal smiled on their royal family after so long.

*~*~*

By tradition, Vrai was supposed to be the only one allowed in the room when Rakel was in labor.

The midwife was frantic due to the fact Rakel need a great deal of support to be on the blocks and even then she couldn’t stand.

Thin and frail, with her hair and beard practically brittle, when it was asked which of her two sons would aid in supporting her due to the fact Vrai could not support her on his own, Dwalin volunteered due to the fact he was the strongest and because Dwalin wanted to spare Balin this.

The fact she could not squat on the blocks on her own was something neither of her sons wanted to think too long on and soon the wait began.

Rakel panted and gasped, sometimes keening in agony as the hours passed into a day, then two. The midwife fluttered around, letting Rakel lay back on the bed when needed, and shoving at her assistant whenever the other Dwarf made a squeaking sound at the amount of blood that began to collect throughout the labor.

The slow and agonizing labor until finally the baby began to make their way into the world.

She snarled and cried, and Dwalin was pretty sure that there was not supposed to be this much blood, and slowly she began to fade, even as the midwife _demanded_ that she stay conscious and push this child into the world.

And then the midwife was holding the baby and passing the child off onto the assistant while demanding they lay Rakel back on the mattress the midwife had had Balin drag in from her home.

The midwife moved frantically, even as Dwalin watched his mother die between one breath to the next to the sounds of the midwife’s assistant’s cries of, “It is a girl! Mahal and Buzninh be praised!” and Vrai’s exclamations of joy, until they died.

Dwalin only knew that his sister was alive because there was not cries and condolences beyond the ones used for the passing of a mother.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” the midwife stated, even as Vrai seemed to nearly release Dwalin’s new baby sister in his shock.

The assistant easily took her from Vrai’s unresisting arms, even as she turned to the midwife in confusion. “There’s no Dwarf woman who has had a child recently, omitting Lady Dís four months ago,” the midwife whispered while Vrai stumbled over to Rakel’s covered body.

Dwalin was about to ask after his sister, when the bundle was carefully placed into his arms, the face screwed up in a near soundless wail, though if he leaned close he could hear it slightly.

*~*~*

“Balin, hand her over before I take a skillet to your head,” Dís demanded once she settled Kíli in the cradle she had made of pillows within the home on the family bed.

Balin looked up from where he was cradling his baby sister, having taken her into the home he shared with Dwalin, as Vrai was…

Well, Vrai was not present.

“I cannot ask it Dís,” Balin answered.

“You’re not asking. I’m demanding. Hand her over. Children are precious and girls more so,” Dís responded softly and Balin handed her over before she settled back, doing a quick cover with the light blanket, though only due to her own desires (and she was known not to cover if people whispered).

Dís cooed gently at her. “Oh, you are darling! What’s her name?” Dís asked.

“Dwalin has taken to calling her Malin. Vrai…best not to speak of Vrai in Dwalin’s presence,” Balin answered softly as he worked on a contract he had been asked to draw up.

“I don’t blame him. He’s been thrown out of three taverns since Rakel’s death. And he was thrown out every time so drunk he couldn’t even get out of the gutter. He’s not taking her death well,” Dís responded and Balin sighed as he finished off the contract.

He knew that Vrai had loved Rakel, with a passion deeper than a vein of mithril in Moria.

Had Vrai met Rakel before Fundin had, before she had fallen so in love with a warrior who had left her and her sons alone in the world, Balin has no doubt that she would have loved Vrai in return.

But Fundin had taken her lover’s heart with him to his grave (burned with the rest at the battle and he does not think on it for too long) leaving barely enough love for her sons.

“There now, all better, yeah?” Dís cooed gently as his sister was eased into the “cradle” next to Kíli.

“I think you will have to do the Transfer of Care,” Dís stated and Balin stared up at her.

“He’s just lost his wife!” Balin protested.

“And yet he does not look for his daughter. Transfer of Care will be what is best for her. And you know it, otherwise you would give a better argument than that,” Dís stated.

Before Balin could either confirm or deny, Dwalin stepped in, all fury that melted away at the sight of the pair of them chatting.

“What’s wrong?” Dís asked.

“Vrai got into a tavern brawl I had to break up,” Dwalin explained.

Dís raised an eyebrow at Balin, who sighed and lifted a hand. “I’ll draw up the papers for Transfer of Care now,” Balin answered softly.

*~*~*

A month later, in the eyes of all the residents of the Blue Mountains, the daughter born to Rakel became known as Malin, sister of Balin.

Vrai had lost all rights to his daughter.

Dwalin truly couldn’t find it in himself to be upset by that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone wondering.
> 
> Fili is 5 years old.
> 
> Ori is 3 years old.
> 
> Kili is five months old.
> 
> Malin is a month old.
> 
> (And so begins things.)


End file.
